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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25303762">Protection Detail</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster'>lucymonster</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Banter, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Flirting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:54:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>922</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25303762</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If the gala is really an ambush, then it only makes sense that Princess Leia’s date is really an armed bodyguard.</p><p>This isn't what Cara signed up for when she became a shock trooper. But it has its perks.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cara Dune/Leia Organa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Little Black Dress Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Protection Detail</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/gifts">Nununununu</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Being a shock trooper means going where they send you, no matter what. Sometimes you charge on foot into active warzones. Sometimes you airdrop unshielded through heavy bombardment. Today…</p><p>The sleeves of Cara's dress hide a monomolecular dagger and her telltale ink. She cuts a slit in her skirt for easy access to a thigh holster, then covers the slit with a ruffle. She feels ridiculous. Hasn’t dressed like this since her sixteenth birthday, when her mother guilt-tripped her into a frock and knitted her hair into elaborate braids. Her shorn locks don’t work so well with Alderaanian tradition. The long plait looped around her head is a detachable hairpiece, woven in at great lengths of time and effort by a borrowed maid from the emissarial ship.</p><p>If tonight’s gala is really an ambush, then it only makes sense that Princess Leia’s attendant is really an armed bodyguard.</p><p>‘You’re very tall,’ is the first thing the princess says when her aides let Cara through to her chambers. She’s draped in white silk from head to toe, like a statue out front of the royal palace Cara dimly remembers from childhood field trips. This is her homeworld’s crown princess. Her kin by soil and culture. Maybe that’s why she feels a strange tug in her chest, a strange flush of heat under that piercing gaze. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to draw the wrong kind attention. Ella, can you swap her heels for flats?’</p><p>The maid opens her mouth, but Cara can speak for herself. ‘I’m already wearing flats. If it’s covert you wanted, Your Highness, I’m afraid you picked the wrong soldier. I’m not the high society type.’</p><p>‘Your commander tells me you’re from Alderaan,’ says the princess. ‘The Imperial remnants sprung this trap on us so quickly, I don’t have time to teach any of my regular bodyguards the etiquette. I’m counting on you to know enough of our culture to sell the story.’</p><p>So that’s why Cara’s commander insisted she take the job. Ever since the war ended, it’s been like this: parties, diplomats, increasingly stupid mission briefings. <em> Wear a dress. Go to a gala. That’s an order, dropper. </em> Cara could explain that she left Alderaan the moment she saved up enough coin for passage. Attendant to Princess Leia Organa? Her parents would have loved her to grow up a royal attendant. They sent her to finishing school; she got thrown out on her ass for brawling. Now after leaving her birth sphere to become someone who could use her fists for good, she’s stuck back living her dead mother’s dream after all.</p><p>More and more she thinks of leaving the New Republic. Making bank as hired muscle. She has the contacts. Has the skills. But not tonight – she’s already clocked on for tonight, and the last surviving member of her homeworld’s royal family is counting on her for protection. ‘Use the small spoon first, right? Curtsey with my left foot forward. Don’t drink till after the toast.’</p><p>Princess Leia’s lips twitch. She has a nice smile, friendlier than her lofty title would suggest, and Cara’s sure it would look just as nice without the paint. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that. Okay, let me rethink. If you’re not an attendant then perhaps you’re something else. Something more personal. Someone whose rough manners I have reason to overlook.’</p><p>‘Like a bodyguard?’ They could drop the covert act altogether. Why not? In these uncertain times, Cara sees no reason why someone of Leia’s station shouldn’t travel with extra caution.</p><p>‘You do favour the direct approach, don’t you? But no – I was thinking of a lover. What do you say, Squad Leader Dune? Be my date for the night. We’ll have a good time together.’</p><p>Cara’s tight bodice doesn’t breathe very well. That’s why she feels so flushed and prickly, so hyperconscious of her body with its ticking pulse. ‘Not over hors d’oeuvres, Your Highness. I like my good times to come with higher stakes. A nice firefight or assassination attempt, that’s more my speed.’</p><p>There’s that smile again. ‘In that case, we should consider going steady. I have enough enemies to entertain you indefinitely.’</p>
<hr/><p>Later that night, as Cara’s laying down cover fire to keep the insurgents off their position, she hears a wry laugh over the <em> crack crack crack </em>of repeating blasters.</p><p>‘I did promise you a good time,’ says the princess.</p><p>Cara’s rifle is hot in her hands. Her lips still tingle from the kiss they shared earlier – acted, of course, to help sell their story, nothing <em> real </em>about it – and her veins sing with an adrenaline high that fighting on its own has never given her.</p><p>‘You sure did, Your Highness.’</p><p>‘Please, just call me Leia. After a night like this, I’d like to think we’re on first name terms.’</p><p>Cara still plans to book it out of the New Republic sooner or later. Mercenary work’s at an all-time premium, and besides, the lead-up to this shootout? The speeches, the formalities, the endless parade of butlers and socialites? No one should have to work so hard for a simple fight. But if the princess – Leia – wants to bring her along on more nights like this, then who knows?</p><p>Maybe she can stick to her post for just a little longer.</p><p>‘Leia,’ she says, trying the word aloud and enjoying the freedom from one layer of stifling etiquette. ‘Okay, then. Call me Cara. I’m thinking you were right before: maybe the two of us should go out more often.’</p>
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